Man City pay heavy price to carry ‘sappers’
Something that particularly resonated with his countymen was the idea that playing the big teams was like going to war.
As Brian Corcoran would recall in his autobiography: “The real test of a player for him was Arsenal at Highbury. When he stood alongside Vieira in that tunnel, he wanted a certain calibre of competitor lined up behind him. That tunnel in Highbury was his trench and he only wanted certain players in it.”
Playing Arsenal at the Emirates isn’t quite as daunting as it was but it’s still a gauge of a side’s championship credentials and last Sunday it confirmed that Manchester City don’t have enough warriors and instead possess at least one player that Keane would simply dismiss as a “muppet”.
Alan Hansen has contended that if Alex Ferguson was over Manchester City they’d have won the league convincingly because he’d have moulded them into a team, instead of toleratingindividualists like Mario Balotelli.
Hansen is right. Whatever about with kids, you can’t win titles with muppets.
It is easy to be seduced by talent and how it can turn and win a game for you with a moment of magic. But as Ferguson knows, there is a difference between winning games and winning championships.
Clive Woodward discovered this the hard way. Before the 1999 World Cup his England players underwent an intense army camp. Upon Woodward’s urging, the senior marines told him frankly that there were men in his group they wouldn’t go into battle with. Woodward was amazed. They were players who he had his doubts about too. Yet they were so skilful. What was it about them? “It’s not about skills,” the marines told him. “It’s about their attitude and effect on the team.” There were plenty of soldiers who could run for three days, think on their feet and handle a weapon. But put them in a high-pressure situation and they could jeopardise an entire operation, by even uttering a bit of a moan as they were about to burst through some door. “One wrong team player,” they’d warn Woodward, “can sap all the energy from the group.”
Woodward would persevere with the energy sappers for that World Cup but not a minute after it.
Instead when he assembled his next squad he outlined in detail a critical distinction. An energy sapper was someone who bled the group’s energy with their selfish, divisive behaviour.
An energiser was open and energetic to new ideas and put the group first. Any player displaying energy-sapping behaviour would be warned; failing that, he would never be selected again.
There would be casualties. Richard Cockerill admits he was a sapper. But in being less obsessed with playing the “best players” and instead favouring a full group of energisers, England would become the best team in world rugby.
It is doubtful now whether Roberto Mancini has either the time or the intellect to absorb that principle. In a way it would be sad to see him replaced by a Jose Mourinho because Mancini’s achievement in guiding Inter Milan to their first Scudetto in 17 years was as significant a breakthrough for the club as the Special One delivering the Champions League two years ago, as much as Mourinho has played down Mancini’s feat.
City’s implosion though has underlined just what a marvellous job Mourinho did at Chelsea and particularly the brilliance of Ferguson.
We in Ireland might not like to hear it but Ferguson sold Norman Whiteside and Paul McGrath because they were sappers, and as much as Ferguson now wishes he’d have more empathetic with a troubled talent like McGrath, his instinct for weeding out energy-sapping behaviour has been inspired.
Paul Ince was the best midfielder in England in 1995 but Ferguson detected he was becoming susceptible to what the great NBA coach Pat Riley calls the Disease of Me. David Beckham, Dwight Yorke and Ruud van Nistelrooy also fell victim to the same syndrome and were subsequently released. Even Keane was discarded when his constant carpings were sapping the group’s energy more than boosting it.
Carlos Tevez was more complex. So much of his game is based on a selflessness and an energy which is why both United and City supporters revered him before they derided him. But ultimately there was a selfish selflessness about him too that meant he had a limited shelf life.
United won so much for so long because Ferguson valued the selflessness of players like John O’Shea, Phil Neville and Park Ji-Sung as much as he’s been able to call on incredible talents like the Rooneys, Ronaldos and Cantonas. Instead of becoming afflicted with the Disease of Me, such squad players retained what Riley calls the innocence.
It’s why Paul Scholes is closing in on his 11th title; Ryan Giggs and Fergie himself, their 13th. You win titles with squad and team players like Ole Solskjaer and Javi Hernandez, not sappers like Tevez and Balotelli.
* kieranshannon@eircom.net
